


Friendly Fire

by bitboozy



Series: Start a Fire [4]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Post-Series 2, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:28:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23637562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitboozy/pseuds/bitboozy
Summary: After agreeing to explore the possibility of a relationship, Alec and Ellie find themselves tested on their first real night together.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller, Alec Hardy/Ellie Miller
Series: Start a Fire [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1567420
Comments: 77
Kudos: 157





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone remember this series? Had an ember of an idea and thought I'd check back in with our heroes.

Alec and Ellie have agreed to “try.”

To try at what exactly, it is unclear. To try at a relationship, perhaps. At “dating.” Some sort of vague commitment…

Unfortunately the realities of their respective situations make it so that it has been one full month since they have actually laid eyes on another one. One full month since they agreed to _try_.

Alec is living and working in Bournemouth, and still attempting to repair and soften his relationship with his daughter in Sandbrook. Ellie is very much back to work at CID, and juggling the wildly varied needs of a newly teenaged son and a toddler. On top of all this, her father has moved in.

Ellie had begged Lucy to take him. With Olly in London, there was plenty of room. But Ellie had lost, due to Lucy’s argument that Ellie could use the built-in child-minding. Frankly, Ellie would much rather pay Chloe to do the job. But, she supposes, it _is_ convenient for impromptu late nights at work. Some of the time. And her father seems to be coming back to life in wake of her mother’s death, thanks to time spent with her boys.

All that said, a full house makes it much more difficult spend time with her maybe-boyfriend.

They speak on the phone perhaps twice a week, late at night, often into the morning. But most nights one or more of them is too tired.

Fed up, Alec calls her at early one morning. “Dinner,” he says. She hesitates, but he’s having none of it. “Just dinner. I’ll pick you up after work. Tell your father you’re working late.”

And he’s there, car parked outside the station, at 5pm exactly. When she steps out the door, he seems like a kind of mirage to her. She tries not to break into a full on _run_ as she approaches the car. She feels like she’s about to be whisked away by a handsome stranger for a drive around Monte Carlo.

“Hi,” she says breathlessly as she gets into the car.

He smiles at her, and it’s clear he’s suppressing a much larger grin in order to seem nonchalant and cool. “Hi.”

“You’re really here.”

Ellie leans forward and kisses him, capturing his lips slowly and lingering. Then she smiles and her eyes catch a glimpse of a picnic basket in the backseat.

“Oh, I don’t believe it,” she gasps. “You did not pack a picnic basket.”

“Don’t get too excited, it’s full of healthy things,” he replies, turning the engine on again. “Although I may have packed an indulgence or two.”

“Oh, just drive.”

*

He takes her to the cliff tops. She tries to seem less surprised and astonished, lest it insult him. He lays out a blanket and beckons her to sit while he sets out the feast he’s prepared. He pours her a stemless glass of white wine and one for himself.

“Thank you for findin’ the time,” Alec says.

“Thank you for whisking me away.”

She sits cross-legged facing him. It’s not alluring or elegant but it is _familiar_ and relaxed and everything he wants from her. She seems entirely at ease, entirely _present_ with him.

With a smirk, she reached for the grapes he’s laid out. “Seedless, I presume?”

She pops one into her mouth and begins chattering on about the boys, about the double-edged sword that is her new tenant, about work. She updates him on Lucy’s new boyfriend, Olly’s new job in London, how big Lizzie is getting. Every once in a while she pauses, out of politeness, out of an instrinsically female fear of talking too much, but he always wait for her to continue, sipping his wine and smiling.

Then she begins her line of questioning. How is Daisy? How is she getting on with Tess? How’s his new DS in Bournemouth? What has he been doing in his spare time? Though they’ve spoken on the phone once or twice a week, it hasn’t been nearly enough, and she asks even the questions she knows the answers to because she likes hearing him speak. Likes the gruff, mildly irritated way he tells stories. Succinct and grudging, but with an air of relief.

The conversation moves into her therapy progress. She had been very clear in agreeing to explore a relationship with him that her mental health came first and he’d agreed wholeheartedly. The medication is continuing to do what she refers to as _the lord’s work_ and she has worked through most of her self-destructive feelings and tendencies. She no longer believes that Danny’s death was her fault. She no longer believes that Joe’s illness was her fault. Her therapist’s first priority had been absolving her of those beliefs and it had taken a full year to do it. Now they’re working on helping her to understand that Joe really did love her. That their marriage had been real and beautiful, for a time, illness or not. That Joe had been a good father to their children and had, and certainly _does_ , love them very much. But Ellie’s not quite there yet. First intellectual understanding, then emotional. She’s not allowed to rush herself.

Alec is listening intently as she speaks. He has to work extremely hard not to let her see just how moving he finds this particular topic, how his heart shatters just watching the way her face contorts as she shares this part of herself, the way her gaze meets his so much less than normal. It absolutely _gnaws_ at him that she has to experience this kind of trauma.

Then again, he shudders to think, if her trauma did not exist, nor would their relationship. It’s a harrowing thought.

His guilt is dissipated the moment she says, “Have you considered therapy?”

His first instinct is to laugh, but he quells it. What comes out instead is an eerily familiar phrase. “Ah, come on, Miller.”

Her eyes widen. One eyebrow raised. An eerily familiar response.

His swipes a hand over his face then pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sorry.”

To his surprise, she brushes past it. “I think it would do you a world of good. After everything you’ve been through….well, I’d say I can’t believe you haven’t tried it, but of course I can.”

“’m all right,” is his predictably dismissive response.

“We’re none of us all right, Alec,” Ellie replies. He’s not sure if she means everyone in the world, or everyone in their little corner of the world. But then the phrase “their little corner” makes him smile and he forgets to wonder. “You should really consider it.”

He grunts and takes a sip of his wine.

“Alec.” The tone of voice she uses when she’s demanding to be taken seriously.

He shrugs. “I’ll think about it.”

She nods. This is good enough for now. There’s a slight pause between them, but the silence feels active, not uncomfortable. He leans forward a bit, reaching a hand out to touch her cheek. She smiles. He gently tucks her hair behind her ear, then draws her chin forward and kisses her.

When they break apart, she’s grinning. “Now that I can’t argue with.”

Ellie grasps the back of his neck and keeps him close, kissing him again, moving onto her knees. He shifts a bit, holding onto her waist, and suddenly she’s looming above him and her tongue becomes the aggressor. She tastes like wine and cheese and nothing has even been so delicious to him. He moans happily into her groan and she grins into the next kiss.

“Yeah?”

“Mm.” He’s breathless. “Yeah.”

Alec shifts again and guides her over onto his lap, holding her thighs as she straddles him. She runs her fingers through his hair and it deepens his groans, now escaping from the very back of his throat. She simply elicits one _mmm_ after another, each one feels luxurious and indulgent. When she presses her breasts to his chest, they lose their balance and fall back onto the blanket.

They both laugh and she asks, “Miss me?”

His highly aroused, indistinct Scottish grunting is more than enough of an enthusiastic indicator that he has indeed. She captures his lips again, writing languidly on top of him, and his hands untuck her blouse and slip underneath, warm hands caressing warm skin.

He’s hard already and part of him wishes he could make his unmitigated arousal a _little_ less obvious. He hears his twenty-year-old self say, _Be cool, Hardy._ But he absolutely cannot be cool around her, not anymore, not the way he managed to be when they were working together. The floodgates have opened, have _been_ open, since the moment they fell asleep together in his bed the day he left Broadchurch. His entire body aches for her daily, any and every part of her. There is no hiding it.

“Mmmm,” she coos, grinding her hips against his hardness. Clearly, she’s not bothered.

His hands slide up to caress the sides of her breasts and he can feel himself getting harder. The tragedy of it all becomes clear to him as he realize that’s no way on earth he’s going to get to make love to her out here on the cliff tops. Even if _he_ could overlook the public indecency, she would never. This is _her_ town and she has far more to lose if they were to get caught. _But_ , he reasons, quite pleased with himself, there is _one_ thing she might let him do…

He flips them over, gently moving her onto her back. He keeps kisses her with every ounce of concentration he has, instinctively rubbing his cock against her. Then he reaches a hand between them. His fingers find the button of her fly and unfasten it. Her mouth goes slack and she opens her eyes. Sensing it, he does too.

“I’ll be _discreet_ ,” he ensures her, laying the accent on thick the way she likes it.

She hesitates for a moment, eyes flickering over his face, then nods. He grins, then pulls her zipper down and slips his hand down into her knickers. Her thighs begin to part further. He kisses her deeply, then buries his face in her neck as he finds her clit. Her _mmmm_ s raise to a higher pitch.

She gasps and he nearly does too. God, it feels so good to touch her, to feel her, to _hear_ what his touch can do to her. His late night fantasies have nothing on the real thing. He strokes her slowly, teasingly, relishing each one, watching the result of each one on her face. She has one hand in his hair, the other pressing into his back, nails digging. Each one of her gasps is full of such delight and surprise, as if she somehow thought she’d never have an orgasm again, and she bucks her hips into his hand greedily. When she comes, the sound is so glorious that he can’t bring himself to stop stroking her. She has to reach down and still his hand with hers, with a breathless laugh of pure joy.

“ _God_.”

He sits up, wipes his hand on a napkin, then hands her one. He’s still hard as a rock, unsurprisingly, but that’s okay. She props herself up on her elbows and looks at him, flushed and happy.

“That was unexpected.”

He raises an amused eyebrow. “ _Was_ it?”

She laughs. “Dad has his mahjong tonight, you know.”

Alec merely blinks at the non-sequitar.

“Do you have to get right home?” She asks.

“Uh…” He’s waiting for the pitch.

“If you come by once Dad’s left. We can have the place to ourselves for a bit, kids upstairs. Then I can have you snuck up to my room by the time he comes home and you could…”

He straightens, ears perked up like a dog’s. “Stay the night?”

She nods knowingly. “Mm-hmm.”

It seems a little flimsy to him, this plan. Kids upstairs, free to disturb them at any moment (and be disturbed themselves). Dad out for the night, barring a mishap or any misadventures. If it were this easy, it would not have taken them a full month to see each other. She’s clearly under the influence of her orgasm and not thinking clearly.

But of course, the minute “stay the night” enters the equation, he’s no longer thinking clearly either.

She senses his hesitance and sits all the way up, then crawls toward him on her knees. She rubs his back, kisses his temple, lips brushing over his ear.

“Don’t we deserve it?” She asks in a low voice.

No question. However…

“Ellie,” he growls, growing powerless at her touch and warmth of her breath on his ear.

She closes her eyes, brushing her forehead against his, and unbuttons the top few buttons of his shirt, slipping her hand in to slide over his chest.

 _Christ_ , he’s got her _possessed._

“Is that a good idea?” He asks, swallowing.

Her thumb rubs back and forth over his nipple. “It’s never going to get easier, Alec,” she says finally, sounding surprisingly lucid. “We have to make room for this ourselves. If it’s ever going to work.”

The _if_ nearly stops his heart. And he can’t deny he’s pleased by the way she’s taking charge, leading him, desperately wanting him. After at least six months of actively pining for her, it’s a freshing change.

“We’re easing into it,” Ellie says softly. “But there’s only so much we can control.”

His lips find hers. He’s fully intoxicated now.

“Come home with me,” she whispers against his lips. “See where we end up.”

After a brief pause, he simply nods, his lips capturing hers again.

It takes a few lingering moments to extricate themselves from each other, but then they begin packing up the picnic basket, folding the blanket, brushing themselves off. Alec reaches over and pulls a leaf out of her hair. She grins.

In the car, they make a plan for him to drop her off, then return when she texts and gives him the all clear. On the street outside her house, they end up snogging in the car, both of them needy and possessive.

“See you soon?” She says when they break away, as she opens the car door.

He exhales, then nods. “See you soon.”

As he watches her walk up her drive to the front door, he notices his leg is shaking. His chest is a bit tight, his hand squeezing the steering wheel. All of a sudden he has this unshakeable feeling that tonight could make or break them.

And he wonders if Ellie knows it.

*


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for coming back to this series with me! Hope everyone is well.

The plan is formulated haphazardly and with little say from him.

He drops her back off at her car, still parked near the station, and is told to come by her house in about an hour or so. By then, he is assured, her father will be gone and Fred will be asleep.

He’s not quite sure what to do in the meantime. He could get out of his car and go for a walk, but he’s less than enthused by the possibility of running into a familiar face at this particular moment. Of having to excuse himself when the hour is up because his booty call is ready for him.

But the minute the phrase _booty call_ enters his mind, he knows he cannot just sit in his car for an hour. Without giving it much thought, he ends up at the pub. Where people go to kill time. As he understands it, anyway.

He nurses a scotch, sitting in the corner and observing the “local colour.” Then he pulls up on the street outside Ellie’s house exactly when he’s been told to. Her father’s car is nowhere to be seen, which is a promising start. With a bottle of wine in hand, he waits at the front door.

Lo and behold, wouldn’t he have known it, she answers the door with a baby in her arms.

Ellie flashes him a flushed smile. “Sorry. Giving me a bit of trouble tonight, this one is.”

Fred is laying with his head on her shoulder, clearly exhausted but presumably as stubborn as his mother is. She shifts him a bit to see Alec.

“Freddie, look who it is, love.”

Alec leans over a bit. “Hi there, lad.”

Fred blinks at him, too tired to smile but the intention is there. “Haw-dy.”

Ellie laughs and kisses his forehead. Then she steps back and allows Alec to step inside. He closes the door behind him. She leads him into the living room and sits down on the couch, Fred yawning on top of her. This is not the first time they’ve been in this exact situation. The three of them have sat together on this same couch once before, and Alec wonders if Fred has a sixth sense for these things. If he’s subconsciously trying to protect his mother from suitors far and wide.

“Must be getting awfully tired, Freddie…” Ellie trails off, rubbing his back.

Alec crosses one leg over the other and watches them, unsure of what exactly he should be doing.

“Mumma seep,” Fred mumbles.

“No, love, not tonight.” She looks at Alec. “He’s been sleeping in my bed more often than I’d like to admit.”

“ _Mumma seep_ ,” he whines.

“Mumma’s going to have a nice glass of wine with DI Hardy,” Ellie says, gentle but firm. “ _Fred_ is going to sleep. In his very own Thomas the Tank Engine bed!”

She looks at Alec with a sparkle in her eye, clearly proud of this latest purchase, and the fact that her baby sleeps in a _bed_ now. Such as it is.

“Wow, Fred, a Thomas bed?” Alec says, trying to catch the boy’s sleepy gaze. “Aren’t you lucky.”

Fred blinks at him, then says, “Hawdy seep too.”

Ellie snorts and squeezes him. “Everybody’s going to sleep tonight, lovely. Everybody sleeps at night. Toms, Freds, Mummas, and Hardys. And everybody sleeps _in their own beds_.” She looks over at Alec for confirmation. “Isn’t that right, DI Hardy?”

Alec coughs. “Bloody well hope not.” She glares at him warningly. “That’s right, mate. We all sleep in our own beds, that’s what big boys and big girls do. Are you a big boy, Fred?”

Fred pouts and nods at the same time. “’m BIG.”

“Two and a half years old, very big indeed,” he agrees. “You’ll have to prove it to me.”

Fred does not know what this means, so he frowns.

“How ‘bout some milk, eh?” Ellie offers.

Fred nods enthusiastically against her chest.

“All right then.”

She extricates Fred from her and transfers him over to Alec. Fred easily curls up against him.

“I’ll just be a minute,” she says. “Don’t usually let him have milk this late but it ought to knock him out well enough.”

She disappears. Fred is quiet, playing with the lapel of Alec’s jacket.

“Fred?” He ventures. “Will you show me your new Thomas bed after your milk?”

“Um-hmm.”

“Good. I’ve never seen one before.”

“Bwoo.”

“It’s blue?”

He nods.

“Is blue your favourite colour?”

He nods again. “And wed.”

“Blue and red. Excellent choices.”

Ellie returns with a sippy cup of milk. She sits back down and shuffles Fred back onto her lap. She hands him the sippy cup and cradles him like a much younger baby, but he instantly seems to melt into her, eyelids drooping as he drinks his milk.

“Sorry about this,” she says quietly to Alec. “I was told he didn’t nap today, so I thought he’d go down easy. But it’s never easy when you think it will be. And I never learn.”

He is, in fact, quite content to be where he is, watching her lull her baby to sleep. It’s already one of the loveliest moments he’s witnessed in his recent memory and it’s still happening.

“Not to worry,” he says.

Fred reaches out for her hair as he drinks. Not quite pulling it, just scrunching it up in his hand, clearly finding comfort in it.

They all sit quietly together for a few moments. Once Fred drains the milk in his sippy cup, he falls asleep with his hand in her blouse. She carefully removes the cup from his other hand, holding it out to Alec as she gingerly stands, rocking him as she does.

“Mumma seep,” Fred mutters, mid-yawn.

“Back in a minute.”

The comfort small children find in their mothers astonishes Alec. Or perhaps, the comfort _Ellie’s_ child finds in her. He supposes Daisy must have with Tess, but he doesn’t remember it that way. Tess never quite had the maternal energy Ellie exudes around her children.

While she’s upstairs, Alec takes it upon himself to retrieve a couple wine glasses from the kitchen and pours them each a glass. As he waits for her, he takes off his jacket and glances at the framed photographs that adorn the living room now. There’s no Joe to be found, unsurprisingly. Pictures of Ellie and her two boys. Many of just the boys, even more just of Fred (he has no trouble imagining Tom being camera shy these days). Lucy, Olly, her father. Her parents. One just of her late mother.

He picks up a recent photo of Tom in his football uniform. Tom, who is presumably upstairs at this very moment, brooding in his room over something or other as teenagers are wont to do, entirely unaware of the fact that the man who arrested his father is currently in the living room waiting to seduce his mother. He has absolutely no idea what Tom might make of their relationship. If they can call a relationship. He’s not even sure she would, at this point. He would equally believe Tom being furious as he would Tom not giving one single fuck. He takes a sip of his wine and returns the frame to its place.

When Ellie returns, she’s slightly breathless from jogging down the stairs and her smile is so uncomplicated it nearly takes his breath away. The last six months, when he’s managed a smile out of her, there’s always seemed to be something attached to it. Regret, confusion, fear, disappointment, self-consciousness, uncertainty. Not now.

Alec reaches for her wine glass and hands it to her.

“Oh.” She takes it. “Ta.” She takes a sip, acutely aware of his eyes on her. “Good,” she says about the wine, then sets it down again.

He takes a cue from her and sets his down as well.

“Fred go down all right?”

She chuckles to herself. “Muttering _Mumma Hawdy seep_ until he finally rolled over and started baby-snoring.”

He takes a step toward her, reaching for her hips. “Mumma Hardy _no_ sleep.”

Ellie laughs out loud as he pulls him against him deftly. She places her hands on his chest as his arms circle her waist properly.

“Like watchin’ you this way,” he says softly. “When Mum Ellie comes out.”

She blushes a bit. She’s always doing that, he notes with great admiration. “She’s _always_ out, she’s just distracted and bloody knackered most of the time.”

He ignores her deflection. “I like the way Fred…melts into you. Like you’re the only thing he understands.”

She smiles, looking down.

“Like he’s trying to climb back inside you.”

She looks back up at him, cheeks pink. “You like that, do you?”

“ _Very_ endearin’.” He dips his head and his lips brush over her warm cheeks, then along her jaw.

“ _Endearing_ ,” Ellie repeats, with much amusement.

He kisses her neck slowly, taking his time, letting his lips brush over a spot before pressing into her skin. He can _feel_ her shiver at the sensation, perhaps at the light scrape of his beard. The hand at the small of her back grasps at her blouse.

“Mm.” She closes her eyes and tilts her head, already a bit dizzy at his touch, and places her hand at his neck, applying pressure whenever he does the same with his lips.

His hands slip up underneath her shirt and begin roaming her back, her hips, her shoulders as he finds a patch of skin he particularly likes and sucks at it. Her hand moves up to the back of his scalp, fingers threading through his hair.

“Oh that’s good,” she whispers, perhaps unconsciously, her legs turning to jelly beneath her. “That’s – mhmm.”

He grins then sinks his teeth into her skin and she gasps. Approvingly.

They don’t hear the front door open. Or the footsteps in the hallway.

His hands find their way to her breasts, caressing them through her bra, and she lets out a contented sigh just before her father clears his throat in the doorway.

They break apart, Ellie nearly jumping out of her skin, and Alec drops his hands to his sides, arms dangling. He glances down to make sure the tightness in his trousers is not overtly visible. Just in case, he turns his body slightly to the side.

“What in christ’s name do we have here?!” David exclaims, folding his arms across his chest indignantly.

“ _Dad_ ,” Ellie replies breathlessly, wiping her mouth for any stray lipstick that might have been smeared. “What are you – “

“Forgot my lucky pocket watch.” He looks back and forth between Alec and his daughter. “For a reason, apparently.”

Ellie looks down like a scorned teenager, but very quickly recovers her strength again. “I don’t believe you’ve actually met Alec Hardy.”

“His reputation precedes him,” David replies tersely.

Alec clears his throat and takes a step forward, holding out his hand. “…Mr. Barrett.” He is _extremely_ close to calling him _sir_ , but then remembers that he himself is a forty-six-year-old man with a police badge in his car and he has little need of calling anyone who doesn’t outrank him _sir_.

David is still, hesitating. Ellie is glaring at him. “ _For god’s sake_ ,” she hisses.

This prompts David to reluctantly step forward and take Alec’s hand, as briefly as possible. There’s a pause, then he asks, “Just how long’ve you been after my daughter, then, Hardy?”

Alec scoffs. “ _After_.”

David looks at Ellie. “Is it true? What they said during the trial?”

Ellie’s jaw drops.

“Very little of what anyone said during that trial was true,” Alec retorts, so she doesn’t have to.

“Does Tom know you’ve got him down here?” David looks at Ellie, challenging her. “The man who arrested his father.”

“I’m forty-one years old, Dad. I’m free to see who I like,” she says. “In my own home, no less. And I won’t be spoken to this way, not even by you. And just to be clear, this man _arrested his father_ because his father was a murderer and confessed to it. This man is to be commended for a job well done and nothing else.”

David shakes his head. “You’re not naïve enough to believe it’s as simple as that, Ellie.”

Alec takes another step forward. “Sir – “ _Damnit_. “I may not be good enough for your daughter, but I think either one of us would be hard-pressed to find anyone who is. I’ve worked hard to do right by her and to respect her feelings and her needs, and I’ve done that. There’s not a bloody _thing_ untoward about what you’ve witnessed here.”

David stays focused on Ellie. “And with your _children_ upstairs.”

She stares back at him, flummoxed. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are parents to remain chaste and celibate so long as there are children in the house? You think Joe and I slept in separate bloody beds and never touched each other?”

Alec cringes. Frankly he’d like to believe that’s true.

“Did you and Mum? Being a parent doesn’t mean you stop being a person and I know you know that, so what exactly is the problem here?” Ellie continues, hands on hips.

David looks at his shoes and grumbles, “Don’t like it.”

“Duly noted. Meanwhile you’re under _my_ bloody roof so I suggest you find your sodding pocket watch and get on with your evening, yeah?”

Ellie watches as her father slowly turns away, muttering under his breath, finally announcing, with his back to her, “Gonna sleep at Charlie’s tonight then.”

“Good, go on. Sleep at Charlie’s. Give him my best!”

They wait until they hear the front door slam before turning to each other once more. Then Ellie moves past him to the bookshelf, retrieving a gold pocket watch from inside a painted ceramic bowl, clearly an art class project of Tom’s.

Alec regards her wide-eyed as she grins mischievously. “…You _wanted_ him to come back and find us.”

“Pissed me off this morning,” she replies. “Crotchety old wanker.”

Alec can’t help letting out a laugh as she swings the watch from side to side.

“Tables have turned,” she adds. “Under _my_ bloody roof now, he is.”

“What a woman,” Alec marvels.

“And besides all that I did it for you.” She tosses the watch on the couch and moves toward him again. “Wanted you to see that I’m…well. I’m in this. And I’m not bothered what anyone else thinks.”

He takes a step toward her until their bodies are flush again. “No one?”

She shakes her head slowly. “No one.” She slinks her arms up around his neck. “Well, the boys maybe. But kids are pliable.”

“And Fred and I are already best mates.”

Ellie grins so wide it crinkles her nose. He leans down and kisses her, feeling a surge of pure joy that he nearly doesn’t recognize. He thinks back to all the time he spent pining for her and understands that now all he has to do is enjoy her. And he fully intends to.

His hands slip into her back pockets as he pushes her back toward the couch. She painstakingly pulls her lips away from his, panting.

“Upstairs,” she exhales.

“Right.” He lets go of her. “You’re certain?”

She picks up her wine glass. “Have I not made that clear? Bring the wine.”

Alec picks up his glass and the bottle and follows her toward the stairs.

“Quietly,” she whispers. “Tom’s at the far end of the hall but the stairs are creaky.”

No pressure.

He’s only seen her bedroom once before. After arresting Joe, walking through the house with SoCo. It’s different now. Light purple walls, new bed, furniture rearranged. It’s amazing to him that she’s managed to remain in this house after all that’s happened, the bedroom above all, and he’s desperate to give her some _new_ memories to associate with it.

Ellie finishes what’s left in her wine glass and sets it down on her dresser next to the baby monitor.

“Bit weird,” she admits. “But it’s a new bed, I promise.”

Her cheeks are pink again and it makes him smile. In the time he spent working with her, he never saw her blush. He relishes that he gets to see this side of her now. It’s worth the wait.

He puts down the bottle and, after a single sip, his own glass. Then he finds himself feeling a bit paralyzed.

Properly, they’ve shagged four times. (He cannot decide if it feels like more or feels like less.) Each time has been unequivocally brilliant, uncannily good, far and away the best he’s ever had. (Though he hates to compare. Or rank.) And, each time better than the last.

Here, now, on the precipice of their fifth time (christ – will he really keep count forever? Will he be _lucky enough_ to keep count forever?), he is mildly terrified. What if this sort of uncontrollable spark doesn’t last? What if it’s not as good as she remembers? He curses himself for even letting this anxiety seep into him. Not now, not when Ellie is so assured, finally so confident and open. Must one of them always be a mess?

Whatever she senses in him, it leads to her unbuttoning her own blouse. The small smile on her face is calm, reassuring, determined.

It’s the house, he realizes. Her house. Twice they made love in his dowdy apartment, once in his little chalet by the river, and once in a room at the Trader’s hotel. Never in a place that truly belongs to one of them – not a rented room, or a rented apartment neither of them really has any attachment to. This is the bedroom she sleeps in every single night. In the house where her children sleep. Everything here is _hers_ , means something to her, is a tried and true part of her life. All of which he’d like to be. He wants to be a _fixture_ here. Like the framed photographs, the antique mirror, the odd little bowl of pebbles on her dresser.

“Alec,” she says, startling him. “I’ll turn into a pumpkin if you put me off any longer.”

Her blouse is unbuttoned, black lace bra now visible. He smiles to himself when he realizes she’s changed her bra from earlier. He didn’t _see_ it, earlier on the clifftops, but he’s felt it and it most certainly had not been lace.

This seemingly insignificant fact makes him feel at ease. Reminds him that she wants to please him as much as he wants to please her.

He won’t tell her that he’d noticed. He’ll let her have this.

Quickly becoming disgruntled by his hesitance, Ellie shrugs off her blouse and stands in wait, in all her glory.

He licks his lips.

“You too frightened to fuck me in the room I used to share with my killer ex-husband?” She questions, bluntly.

It’s part facetious, part truthful. He can tell. But he’s always relieved that she can sometimes say things like _killer ex-husband_ without breaking down into massive sobs. It feels like progress, though it may just be deflection.

She moves toward him and, without breaking eye contact, whips off his belt. He reaches out to tuck her hair behind her ear, softening her. Her shoulders relax again. He trails his fingers down her body, grazing over her neck, her shoulders, her chest, stopping between her breasts.

“You are _incredibly_ _sexy_ , Ellie Miller,” he tells her, laying the accent on thick. “You know that?”

This time, even her chest blushes. To his surprise, she reaches up and slips her fingers through _his_ hair, pushing it away from his eyes. He realizes that this is the first time they will be together knowing that they are actually _together_. He doesn’t have to prove anything to her, doesn't have to fear her running off when it's all over. She’s with him. She wants what he wants. She needs to kiss him as badly as he needs to kiss her.

Alec has barely finished this thought when her lips are on his. She’s pushed herself up on her tiptoes to meet him, arms around his neck. His hands slide down to her thighs and grip them tightly before raising her up. The gesture makes her grin against his lips and he finds it wildly sexy. He intends to lay her gently on the bed, but she’s too restless and she tumbles out of his arms in a way that makes them both chuckle. He yanks her trousers off, impressed by her matching knickers, then unfastens his own and lets them drop to the floor. He crawls over her and she kisses him hungrily, urgently, like she’s trying to devour him whole and he thinks she may succeed. She opens her thighs to him and he grinds against her helplessly, desperate for friction and the heat between them he’s missed so much.

Ellie reaches back and unclasps her bra. He does the rest of the work in pulling in off of her, then practically dives onto her breasts, taking one in his mouth with a gutteral moan. He nearly loses consciousness when her hand slips into his briefs and curls around his cock. He’s tried to conjur this very feeling so often in her absence over the last month.

“I love you,” he whispers into her soft skin. “I love you.” He’s not shy about saying it anymore. He wears it proudly and without fear of rejection.

Then there’s a knock on the door. He doesn’t register it. Instead, he whispers _I love you_ again.

“Mum.”

They both freeze and it’s _painful_. They try to catch their respective breath.

“… _Mum?_ ”

“Uh. Yeah, lovely,” Ellie calls out, still pinned beneath Alec’s body.

There’s a pause. Then: “Are you _alone_?”

“Uh. No. ‘Fraid not,” she replies in a high-pitched voice. “………DI Hardy’s here, love.”

They both wait, suspended.

“Oh.” Another pause. “ _Oh_. Oh, ew.”

“…Do you need me?” Ellie asks, then bites her lip nervously.

“Definitely not.”

They hear his footsteps begin to trudge away. “Goodnight, sweetheart! Sleep well!” She calls out. Then immediately bursts out laughing, her cheeks redder than he’s ever seen.

He looks down at her incredulously. “Ah, come on, El, did you _really_ not see that comin’?” He asks. “Don’t tell me you planned _this_ too.”

She shakes her head fervently, still giggling involuntarily. “No, I swear. He _never_ comes out of his bloody room, I swear to god.”

Alec shifts until he’s lying beside her rather than on top of her. “…Seemed rather nonplussed, didn’t he? By me, I mean. Obviously totally disgusted by our chosen activity.”

“Yeah.” She nods, biting her lip and smiling. “Good sign.”

He props himself up on his elbow, watching the blush in her cheeks go down, as his hand roams aimlessly over her body, occasionally stopping to knead or stroke.

“You realize our relationship has been introduced to _all_ of the men in your life by walkin’ in on us, right? Or nearly,” Alec points out.

She tries not to laugh again. It’s wildly endearing. “Not Fred!” She starts laughing anyway.

He smiles at her. Impossible not to. Then pinches her nipple between his thumb and forefinger. She gasps.

“Can I shag you now?” He questions pointedly.

“Oh, god, please do.”

He moves over her, dragging his lips from her chest down to the waistband of her knickers.

She props herself up on her elbows and glances down. “And you’ll stay the night?”

He looks up. “…Yeah?”

She blinks at him. “Is that a yes.”

“A yes from me if it’s a yes from you,” he says, somewhat in disbelief.

“If only to give Tom some closure.”

“ _If only_.” He sits up a bit.

She holds her arms out to him and he slides back up her body and into them. “I’m just dying to wake up with you, Alec Hardy,” she says softly. “Kiss you first thing when my eyes flutter open, bad breath and all. Shower with you. Have tea with you. Force you to fix me eggs and make awkward small talk with my children and father. Get dressed in front of you while you stare unabashedly. Kiss you goodbye over and over again and make you late for work.”

It’s not until she gets to the end that he realizes there are tears in his eyes. A strange and unnerving sensation.

“Hurry up then,” she says, snapping back into an unsentimental Ellie he recognizes well. “I’m going to need you to make me come _at least_ three times before we fall asleep.”

He snorts, but he’s grateful for the tone shift. “Aye, madam.”

“And again when we wake up.”

He leans down and kisses her saucy little mouth. “Uh huh.”

“And – “

“Ellie,” he interrupts, then kisses her again.

“Hm.”

“ _Shut up_.”

She grins, once again slipping her hand into his briefs. “Yes, sir.”

***


End file.
